


i wanna pull up my stakes and go home

by bayaningbituon



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Angst, Dialogue Heavy, Gen, Hopeful Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-20 22:08:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21063968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bayaningbituon/pseuds/bayaningbituon
Summary: “Were you running to anywhere in particular?”“I have absolutely no idea where I was going to go,” David confesses with a self-deprecating smirk. “Maybe New York, maybe the nearest civilization. Just somewhere else, you know.”Patrick purses his lips in thought, and then clears his throat and offers, “So, come with me.”orDavid and Patrick have a different first meeting.





	i wanna pull up my stakes and go home

David stares at the phone clenched in his shaking hands. His eyes, glassy with tears and rimmed red, stares fixatedly at the bright screen. His text chain with Alexis is on the screen, his latest message of “Hey, so I just broke down on the side of the road. Can you come get me?” encased in blue. Below it is the notification that it had been read an hour ago, with no reply.

Suddenly, his phone buzzes in a whirr, and he stares in horror as the screen flashes the familiar Apple logo before going black. “No no no no no no no,” he chants, furiously tapping at the phone and pushing every button, but to no avail. The screen stays persistently dark.

He slams the phone face-down on the dashboard, the tightening feeling in his chest growing as he presses his palms against his eyes, as if to push back his tears. His breath catches in his chest, and suddenly he feels as if there isn’t enough air in the car to breathe—as if his lungs had shrunk down to nothing. He gasps, again and again, numbness spreading throughout his body as he struggles to breathe.

His mind just circles around the hollow, hopeless feeling in his chest, a low drone filling his ears as he chokes back a sob.

A sudden knock on the window interrupts his downward spiral. “Oh my god,” David yelps, scrubbing furiously at his eyes. He isn’t sure if he wiped away all the tears, but he isn’t about to wipe his eyes on his Givenchy sweater.

He pulls his hands from his face and glances over to the window, to see a handsome man in a blue button-down shirt gazing at him through the window with concern, one hand holding a bottle of water and the other rapping against the window.

David takes a few deep breaths, trying to calm the jackrabbit patter of his heart, and cranks the window down.

The other man takes it as an invitation and leans forward. “Hey, excuse me? You okay in there?” he asks, eyes roving across David in concern.

“What?” he asks breathlessly, dazed and short-of-breath from his panic attack.

“Hey,” the man replies, “sorry, it was just...I was driving by and saw you on the side of the road. Just wanted to make sure that you were okay.” He reaches in through the open window and hands David the bottle of water. “It’s sealed and everything,” he reassures warmly.

David fumbles with the bottle, taken aback at the altruism from a complete stranger. “Thank you,” he mumbles, a warm feeling spreading through his chest.

“Do you need a jump? Or did you run out of gas?” the man continues, brow furrowed in worry.

“Oh. Um, yeah,” he replies, “I, uh, I ran out of gas. And-and then my phone died. So I’ve just been sitting here pondering my own mortality.”

“Well hey, I have a-an external battery you can use to charge your phone,” the man says, gesturing at his car parked behind David’s. “Or you can use my phone, call someone for help.”

David purses his lips and looks away from the man’s concerned gaze, blinking rapidly to stay the tears. “Well,” he says weakly, “as it turns out, I literally have no one to call.”

There is a moment of silence, and David resolutely does not look away from the bottle of water in his hands; if he sees pity in this man’s eyes, he might just scream.

Then, the man asks, “Can I get in there and take a seat?”

David’s head swivels towards him at the unexpected request. He splutters, flabbergasted, before the first question that popped into his head leaves his lips. “A-are you a serial murderer?”

He chuckles in response and teases with a smirk, “I’m pretty sure if you asked a serial murderer that question, they wouldn’t admit to being a serial murderer.”

David finds himself smiling unbidden, his mouth curling to one side as he looks into the eyes of this good-looking, kind-hearted stranger. They smile at each other for a moment, before the man seems to shake himself from his stupor and extends his hand in greeting. “I’m Patrick. And I know this means nothing to you because I could just be lying, but I promise I’m not a serial murderer.”

David takes Patrick’s hand and shakes it firmly, his thoughts lingering on the feeling of Patrick’s callused fingertips against his palm. “David. And uh, sure, I guess. Come on in.”

David finally opens the bottle in his hand with a click, drinking the cool water within. He watches Patrick walk around the car, eyes narrowed in scrutiny as the water soothes his dry throat. Patrick opens the door, sits down on the worn passenger seat, and closes the door with a squeaky click.

For a moment, there is a curious stillness in the air. David thinks wildly, _Oh my god, why did I say yes? We’re just gonna sit here in silence forever and then I’ll just have to die from the awkwardness of it all!_ David stares fixedly at the wheel, wishing that one of them would just say something.

Patrick clears his throat and asks, “So where you headed, David?”

“I-I don’t know. Away. Anywhere. Although, as you can tell, that is really working out for me right now,” he says with a self-deprecating twist of the mouth.

“Running from something?”

David’s voice, a touch defensive, pitches upwards. “Why do you want to know?”

Patrick shrugs, looks down at his hands in a self-conscious manner at the question. “Well, if you’re running from something, then that means I’m not alone.”

David considers the visage of Patrick—well-groomed, dressed conservatively in an ironed blue-button down and mid-range denim. He seems fairly normal, unusually considerate—well, in David’s experience anyways—and yet he senses an undercurrent of sadness and desperation emanating from Patrick’s fidgeting figure. “Well, what are you running from?”

Patrick heaves a weary sigh, looking out the window in thought before meeting David’s eyes. “You ever feel like you’ve been living a lie your entire life?”

He thinks back to his life in New York, how he always tried to convince himself that he was happy, but never quite managed to reach that feeling, only managing to come close through drugs and the brief euphoria of orgasms with people who couldn’t care less about him. David finds himself nodding before he realizes it. “Surprisingly, yes.”

Patrick frowns, his gaze drifting back towards the window as he continues, “There’s this girl, Rachel. We’ve been together on and off since high school. But I-I don’t feel the things I’m supposed to feel when I’m with her.”

David considers his long, sordid past of broken relationships, of the horrible screaming fights, of getting cheated on or stolen from or left behind. Of the emptiness he felt every single time something went wrong. His lips twist in a sardonic grimace. “Y-yeah, I can relate.”

“And everyone around is just expects that we’ll work it out. That we’ll get married and have kids and be happy. But when I think about that, I just feel like I'm about to crawl out of my skin, and everything feels empty. I don’t hate Rachel, not at all. She's...nice. It’s just...I think I’m gay.”

At the confession, a charged stillness falls over the car. David isn’t quite shocked—he, of all people, know how fluid sexuality is—but he is still surprised that Patrick just said that, and to a veritable stranger.

Suddenly, Patrick covers his face and lets out something between a laugh and a sob.

“You okay?” David asks, tentatively patting Patrick on the back.

Patrick uncovers his face and meets David’s worried gaze with slightly watery eyes. “That was the first time I said that out loud,” he explains, fighting back a grin. “It-it felt like a weight being taken off my shoulders, you know?”

David cannot hold back his smile, his eyes crinkling in pride and joy for Patrick’s bravery. “Yeah, I do. Thank you, for trusting me with that.”

Patrick and David’s eyes meet, sheer relief meeting warm understanding. After a few moments, Patrick clears his throat and looks away, ears reddening at the attention. “Well, enough about me. What about you?”

At the segway, David becomes all too aware of the fact that he is still rubbing Patrick’s back, and quickly draws his hand back and looks back down, his fingers fidgeting with his silver rings. “My story is a little complicated. And I’m not sure I want to tell it to a complete stranger. So…”

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Patrick encourages, having recovered from his emotional relief of finally saying his truth. He raises a hand and pledges, “I promise I won’t tell a soul. Not that anyone in my life would care. No offense.”

David takes a deep breath and lets it out. There’s a certain comfort in telling the story to someone like Patrick, someone who seemed inherently nice and still had jagged edges of his own issues to roughen his seemingly clean-cut exterior. “None taken. Okay, so, basically, my family used to be very, very rich. And then we lost it all and moved here, and every single day we looked for a way out. And my family found a way out recently, a way to get our money back.”

“That sounds lucky.”

“Hmm, yeah. Except when we were rich, we never saw each other. My dad was busy with work and my mom was busy knocking back Benzos and my sister was gallivanting around the world, getting kidnapped by various shady princes. And I was in New York, surrounded by people who never cared about me. I mean, as soon as we lost it all, they disappeared from my life completely. Not a single call or text from anybody.”

David still remembers the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, the overwhelming humiliation at the following days after they had lost everything, every time a call or text went ignored. He tried to play it off as his friends _giving him space_ and _being busy_, but deep down he knew the truth.

“I’m sorry you were surrounded by awful people,” Patrick sympathizes.

“Yeah,” David replies shakily, breathing through that aching loneliness. “Well, so you can see why I’m not exactly jumping for joy. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I was excited too. I did love some of that life. You know, not living in a fugly motel that smells like day-old vomit. Actually being surrounded by people who know the difference between Gaultier and Cavalli. Going out and having more than one restaurant option in town.”

“What’s Cavalli?” Patrick asks with a furrowed brow.

“Nevermind,” David waves away the question—although, the thought Patrick doesn’t know Cavalli, followed by the thought, _I have a lot to teach him_, flits through his mind, quick like fireworks—and continues, “the point is, yes, I’d like to have that culture back in my life. But then I’d be alone again, and I couldn't deal with the thought of that, so I ran away. And then I got stuck here, still alone. So I don’t know what the universe is trying to tell me at this point.”

“Were you running to anywhere in particular?”

“I have absolutely no idea where I was going to go,” David confesses with a self-deprecating smirk. “Maybe New York, maybe the nearest civilization. Just somewhere else, you know.”

Patrick purses his lips in thought, and then clears his throat and offers, “So, come with me.”

David, in the middle of taking another sip of water, chokes at the unexpected offer. After a few strangling coughs, he finally is able to gasp out a response. “What? W-W-Why would I do that?”

Patrick shrugs bashfully and capitulates, “Look, I can at least take you to the nearest town so you can figure out your next step. And I think I’m probably better company than a dead car and a dead phone.”

David lets out an unbidden laugh and switches gears. “Okay, then—why would _you_ do that?”

“I mean...I can’t leave you here alone,” Patrick says casually. As if what he has just said isn’t one of the most significant things David has ever heard. “Us runaways have to stick together.”

David pauses. Thinks. Considers. A part of him deep within whispers in his ear, _he’ll only disappoint you like everyone else. And probably he’s also a serial murderer or a spin instructor or some other monstrosity_. But he also has very little recourse available to him, and another part of him wanted to trust this unguarded, voluntary kindness. He takes a deep breath before nodding in concession. “Okay, fine. But if you are a serial murderer, I will warn you that I can scream very loudly. Like, I did vocal training with a coach that worked very closely with Mariah Carey, and he said that my soprano range is like, up there with hers.”

Patrick laughs and replies, “Well, I am not a serial murderer, but good to know, good to know.”

“Also,” David continues, grabbing his little snack tote bag as they both get out of the car, “I have a lot of bags.”

“Yeah, I noticed. They’re all yours?” Patrick gestures towards the bags with raised eyebrows.

“Yeah,” David says, patting one of the boxes. “I actually had to leave a whole trunk of sweaters behind because it wouldn’t fit. So I had to choose my favorites.”

“Well, I hate to break it to you,” Patrick replies, shaking his head, “but all of those bags are not gonna fit in my car.”

David winces. “I was afraid you’d say that. Fine, fine, but we will fit as much as possible.”

Patrick hefts one of the chests into his arms and staggers a little at the weight. “Okay, wow,” he huffs as he regains his footing.

David rushes to Patrick’s side, arms hovering behind Patrick as if to catch him should he fall. “Careful! I think you’re supposed to lift with your back, so just…”

Patrick lets out a breathless laugh as he starts walking towards his car. “No, no, that’s the opposite of what you’re supposed to do.”

David follows behind, arms still fluttering uselessly. “Okay, let me just—”

“Nah, I got this one, just grab another one.”

David watches as Patrick reaches his car, watches his forearms in those rolled-up sleeves flex as he carries the slightly overweight trunk of sweaters. _Nice_, he thinks salaciously as he watches the man walk away, before he shakes his head and turns back to the truck bed. _Not now, David_, he scolds himself, grabbing one of his suitcases to take to Patrick’s car.

They, one by one, drag the suitcases and heft the bags until only the large box and a couple of bags are left. David and Patrick consider the leftovers, David’s hands on his hips as his lips are pursed in thought.

Patrick, wincing a little, says, “Okay well the trunk and backseat are full.”

David gestures at the box and starts, “Can we strap this to the car maybe? People do that, right?”

Patrick lets out a little chuckle and replies while shaking his head, “Yeah, they can, but I don’t have anything for that.”

David nods sadly, stroking the leftover box. “Alright, alright.”

Patrick gestures at one of the bags that are left. “You can probably fit this old bag in the front seat with you. Just leave it on the floor.”

David looks at the bag—an old, brown crocodile skin bag with worn straps that he found in one of the closets. He isn’t sure why his mother kept such a decrepit old thing around. Perhaps, like Schitt’s Creek, the government found it lacking in value. “Nah,” he dismisses, “it only has non-essential toiletries in there. I have to keep my snack bag near me or I will get hangry.”

And then he stands there, eyes fixed on his leftover luggage, what is left of the scraps of his old life. It's a paltry amount compared to what he used to have, and here he is, leaving even more behind. He should feel more upset, or guilty, or devastated—they may be a season or two behind, but he is leaving behind some incredible Givenchy pieces—but all he can feel is an impending sense of being unmoored. Anticipation tingles down his spine. This is unlike anything he's ever done before; he's always been grounded by anxiety and worry, has always had one foot on the ground in an attempt to keep himself from being swept away, but now? Now he's about to run away with a handsome stranger. Sure, partly it's because both the truck and his phone are dead, but still. _It's like a rom-com_, he thinks, jittery and apprehensive, _or the start of an Alexis story_.

At the thought of his sister, his lips crease in a frown. His sister, who at this moment is probably packing and finding some kind of Asian palace getaway, without a care in the world about David or his text for help. Stevie, _god, Stevie_, who made Schitt's Creek bearable, who had gotten to know small, broken pieces of him and still _stayed_, until what was between them fractured. The gap between them last they spoke seemed insurmountable.

“You okay?” Patrick asks, breaking David's introspective silence.

“Just, you know. Saying goodbye to my wardrobe,” David fibs. He is not going to admit to Patrick about what he was just thinking about.

“Just leave it locked in the car. When you get your phone charged you can get it towed and get your stuff back.”

David rocks back on his heels, fingers twisting around the hem of his sweater. “I um...I did, in fact borrow this truck, so it would not return to me.”

Patrick’s eyes narrow with a playful suspicion. “With or without permission?” he asks, a laugh in his voice.

“Um,” David murmurs, avoiding Patrick’s increasingly amused gaze.

Patrick snickers, entertained at the notion. “So you keep asking me if I’m a serial murderer, while you’re out here committing grand theft auto.”

“Okay,” David protests with an expressive hand gesture, “I did not _steal_ this car. I borrowed it. From a family friend. So I will just write him a note and give it back to him via...towing.”

“Okay, well, I’ll be in the car. Take your time.” Patrick clasps his forearm, a pat of comfort, before turning back towards his car.

“Patrick?” he says, grabbing Patrick’s hand to get him to stay.

“Yeah?” Patrick responds, turning back towards him. His hand feels warm and steady in David’s clasp.

David squeezes his hand, trying to convey the depth of his gratitude in that one gesture. “Thanks, for this,” he replies, letting go of his hand.

“You’re welcome,” Patrick says with a soft smile, before turning back and getting into the driver’s seat of his car.

David clasps his face with both hands in stress, before taking a deep breath and opening the driver’s side door of the truck. He leans across the seat and rummages through the mess of items strewn in the console, before finding a pen and a piece of paper. He stares at the blank piece of paper, tapping the pen against the seat as he struggles to figure out just what to write. His mind flashes back to the last couple of days—

_Honestly David, and like, no offense, but when I get out of here, I’m gonna get my own place._

_I don’t want to like you, but I do, and so sharing a space with you as roommates isn’t gonna work for me. Um, so I’m gonna take a pass, but um, I’m sure you have a lot of friends who would love to live with you._

_Yeah, not as many as you’d think, so..._

_So now I’m gonna go back to New York...by myself, and um...and you can just stay here then._

_Yeah, I think that’s...that’s how it has to be._

_Well, if I’m gonna be going to New York, by myself, then I’m gonna need a little bit more money._

_Well, that’s not gonna happen._

—and has to blink back tears. He takes a few deep breaths, before shaking his head slightly and setting his pen to the paper. After scribbling out a note, he sets it gently on the dashboard, grabs his dead phone, and closes the door. He lingers for a moment, a hand still on the handle as he contemplates the leftover baggage in the truck, the lonely white paper against the dusty dash.

This moment feels important. He feels as though he’s at the precipice of change.

Usually that would give him hives. Usually he would want to run away from it or hide. But for some reason—and he couldn’t explain why—Patrick’s presence soothes his anxiety. The gentle teasing and genuine concern quiets the uneasy buzzing in his mind. He can’t say it’s trust just yet, but it’s...it’s something.

With a soft, sad smile, he turns away from Roland’s truck, leaves behind his excess sweaters and lonely melancholy, and gets in Patrick’s car, ready for something new.

“You ready to go?” Patrick asks lightly, brown eyes full of understanding.

David puts on his seatbelt with a click, meets Patrick’s eyes and smiles. “Yeah, let’s go.”

Patrick turns the ignition, and the car rumbles forward. David watches the passenger side mirror until the truck is almost gone from view, a small dot in the horizon.

🎕🎕🎕

In the car, a lonely white page sits on the dashboard. On it are words, scribbled quickly in a runny black ink. Some words are smudged, as if the letters were stroked with a careful finger before the ink had fully dried.

It reads:

_I can’t go back to the way life used to be for us._

_I’m sorry,_  
_ David_

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This is my first fic in SC and I'm so excited for this fandom! This is unbetaed so please be kind. <3 
> 
> I know David is uncharacteristically frank and open, but he is being caught in a very emotional and vulnerable place...also I don't know about you but I find it usually easier to talk about issues with strangers than with people who know me.
> 
> Anyways, if anyone wants to adopt this idea and run with it, feel free! You could probably build a whole multichaptered fic on this different first meeting lol but I don't have the focus for it.
> 
> Also yes, the title is from Noah Reid's song _Runaway_! Was definitely listening to his album while writing this.
> 
> Hope you all enjoy!


End file.
